10 Of Our Favorite Food Documentaries

A countdown of the top 10 documentaries about food

The notion that documentary film is the spinach of the movie industry — it’s good for you but not enjoyable — may be both unfair and untrue, but it’s worth throwing out there as an entrée to our look at the 10 best documentaries about food. And, by the way, these are great non-fiction films, mind you, not that reality TV food schlock you can catch on every channel under the sun these days.

We post this in honor of tonight’s premiere of the documentary, El Bulli: Cooking in Progress, which highlights Ferran Adrià’s “most influential restaurant in the world,” as dubbed by The New York Times. The father of molecular gastronomy and his restaurant El Bulli, which is shutting down this month, will be featured for two weeks at New York City’s Film Forum, starting today, July 27.

We recommend you see it, and then adding a portion of the following to your Netflix queue.

10 Of Our Favorite Food Documentaries

10. King Corn, 2007

Not to be confused with a Children of the Corn sequel, this documentary hammers home how fundamental corn has become to the American diet. And that’s not a good thing. With the pervasiveness of corn syrup, we’re all in danger of being truly corn-fed.

09. The Garden, 2008

This Oscar-nominated documentary depicts a garden in Los Angeles that galvanizes a community around the faith in getting one’s hands dirty and good, organic food.

08. A Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt, 2011

The crazy cutthroat world of haute cuisine is diced and dissected in this profile of wunderkind chef Paul Liebrandt. Director Sally Rowe filmed Libebrandt up close and personal for almost 10 years, so this one cuts to the bone.

07. Flow, 2008

Without water, there wouldn’t be food, so this film is well worth noting here. This comprehensive look at the moneyed interests controlling Earth’s most vital resource, and the dubious quality of the tap and bottled water we drink, is a must-see.

06. Kings of Pastry, 2010

Directed by documentary legends D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, Kings of Pastry is an enjoyable and sometimes intense look at the most prestigious pastry competition in France. Be prepared to see grown chefs cry.

05. The Future of Food, 2004

Genetically modified foods are sweeping the nation, to the detriment of our diets and to family farms. Who gains? Agribusiness, of course. Who loses? The rest of the planet.

04. Eating, 1990

Hey, wait: Henry Jaglom’s talk-y film is not a documentary, so what’s it doing on this list? Because it is shot like a doc, feels like a doc, and gets profoundly real about the psyche of Los Angeles women and their eating issues — yeah, just like a doc.

03. Fresh, 2009

There is, at times, a hokey quality to this film about beating back the overwhelming growth of agribusiness with sustainable farming, but that’s OK. We need as much naïve goodwill as we can muster; and the real-world deeds of the farmers depicted in Fresh do indeed give a kernel of hope.

02. Super Size Me, 2004

Yes, there’s an annoying quality to Morgan Spurlock’s shtick, but he really was on to something. Eating nothing but McDonald’s might be a kid’s dream, but it proves to be one man’s nightmare here (even if he does ham it up). The film that redefined how many of us look at the Golden Arches deserves high praise.

01. Food, Inc., 2009

Director Robert Kenner’s film gets the top nod here almost by default. Food Inc. doesn’t exactly break new ground, but what it does is effectively gather together all of the issues and themes of our food production cycle gone awry and attacks it with panache. Plus, the awesome poster of the cow with the barcode is genius.